Teacher on Two Wheels

Wednesday 2/13/08 Heredia, Costa Rica

Daniel, my brother-in-law’s brother and my roommate for this week while guests are at the house, is an optimistic college senior who is constantly singing, smiling, and cracking jokes. In addition to being outgoing, Daniel is also curious. Curious about buildings around the world. Curious about English expressions he hears in the English music he listens to. Curious about everything.

When people like Daniel are given access to information via books or the internet, good things happen: they absorb information like the driest of sponges and spill it all over anyone within earshot who shows any interest in conversing. Luckily, I’m going to be living with (and learning from) Daniel for the next four weeks. The other day, I got one of my first lessons.

*****

“So, really, no one bothered you when you were in Nicaragua? No one at all?” Daniel asked, incredulous with raised eyebrows.

Above: The main cathedral in Leon, Nicaragua

I smiled.

Since being in Costa Rica, a few different people have asked similar questions, almost hoping for a certain answer, one that would be more exciting than the answer I invariably give.

“No. Nothing happened. Everyone I spoke with was incredibly friendly. No problems, really.”

“You’re lucky.”

“Why so?” I asked.

“Well, I don’t know. I mean Nicaragua is different than Costa Rica. It’s more dangerous over there. The people are more dangerous, kind of,” Daniel answered.

“What makes you think that?”

“I don’t know.” Pause. Daniel thought about the feeling in his gut that influenced his perception of the place. “I guess here in Costa Rica we think that Nicaragua is more dangerous because we see lots of stories on the news about Nicaraguans committing crimes, Nica men raping women, robbing people with machetes. But, also, I really think people from Nicaragua are more dangerous than people from Costa Rica. It’s not their fault, but they have had so much war in their country that people are just kind of raised to be more violent.”

Above: I passed many homes like this one in the Nicaraguan countryside. I have seen very few homes like this so far in Costa Rica.

I wasn’t sure what to say, where to start. Defending people of other countries to people who have never visited those countries is both exhausting and possibly inappropriate. Exhausting in that it usually involves attempting to disable a hardened stereotype that has been allowed to thrive and roam free for years among the thoughts of its host. Possibly inappropriate in that I often end up trying to defend the country as a whole, something that in itself relies on generalizations. I always struggle to speak only about the people I have met, the warmth I have personally received from the people of a place.

Above: Typical house in the suburbs of San Jose, Costa Rica. Notice the bars on the windows and doors. This house, where I’m currently staying, now also has a large eight-foot steel gate around it.

“I don’t know, man,” I started. “Maybe you’re right, maybe the people are more dangerous, but I spent three weeks riding through Nicaragua, talking to people, camping all over the place, and I never had any bad experiences. Granted, I didn’t live there for years and years and explore the whole country, but people I met along my route seemed no different than you or I in terms of how they treated people, how they welcomed strangers.” Pause. “Maybe I just happened to unknowingly weave my way through a labyrinth of dangerous places and people waiting to rob me, but I doubt that was the case. Just like every other country I’ve ever visited, Nicaragua seemed to be filled with good people.”

Daniel smiled.

“That’s good to hear,” he said. “I also think we feel a certain way toward Nicaraguans here in Costa Rica because there are so many poor Nicaraguans living here. Costa Rica has a population of about four million people; almost one million are Nicaraguan immigrants. They come to Costa Rica because we have more jobs and the jobs here pay more than they do in Nicaragua.”

“One million! That’s a quarter of the population! Wow!”

Above: Main cathedral in San Jose, Costa Rica

“Yeah, I know. A president in the past opened up the borders and made it much easier for them to come into Costa Rica. When he did, many Nicaraguans came in all at once. Now, many Costa Ricans feel like there are too many.” Pause. Daniel looked down into the darkness of his cup of coffee. “But it’s sad because a lot of Costa Ricans base what they feel and think about Nicaraguans on the poor immigrants they meet here in Costa Rica. They only get to see one type of Nicaraguan person.” Pause. “Do you want more coffee?”

“Sure,” I said, surprising myself with the eagerness in my voice. I am (or was, rather) a coffee hater.

I admit it.

I used to never drink coffee. Before coming to Costa Rica, I used to think coffee was about as tasty as sweaty belly button lint. Sweaty belly button lint dipped in stale cat vomit, even. But here, the coffee is unlike anything I have ever tried and spit out before. It’s everything my sister, a ravenous coffee guzzler, had tried to convince me it was. The flavor is layered and can be picked apart, dissected, with the tongue and the mind. The Oooo that it triggers inside you when it first hits your tongue is different from the Ahhhh it sets off once you swallow it.

If a cup of Costa Rican coffee were to meet a cup of New Jersey diner coffee in a dark alley at night, the cup of New Jersey joe would pee its pants, or saucer rather, and scuttle away, spilling its weak, watery innards all over the pavement in the process.

Anyway, over coffee, we talked. When the sun had set so much that the features of our faces grew shadowy and vague in the family living room, when ignoring the darkness any longer would have forced undeserved punishment on our eyes, we ended our conversation and began snooping around for food.